By Ox Drover
Most victims and former victims of sociopaths are extremely capable and smart people, so why exactly did these really smart people go “bankrupt” in their personal lives by letting a sociopath take over? That’s a question that has plagued me since I started on the road to healing.
I’ve always been a pretty astute businessperson and an excellent manager of both personnel and resources in my professional life. Why did I do so well in my professional life and go so wrong in my personal life?
I finally came to the conclusion that I ran my business like a business and I let my personal life be run in a very ”un-businesslike” manner.
I’ll use my farm as an example. I had a herd of cattle that I raised to provide meat, which I sold. So my product was meat, but my means of production was my cows having healthy calves, nursing those calves with plenty of milk, and being good mothers to the calves. If a cow did not have a calf because she had a fertility problem, she was an “unproductive” worker, so I had to fire her. Even if I was attached to her, and she was otherwise a nice cow, if she did not give birth to a calf every year, I could not afford to feed her (or “pay her salary”). If a cow was not having a calf, I noticed her lack of “production” and terminated her without too many tears, because I realized if I had a pasture full of cows that did not have calves, my farm would go “bankrupt.”
Suppose old “Bessie” hadn’t had a calf in five years, but she is so very sweet, and never kicks at me, so how could I in good conscience get rid of her, when she looks at me with those big brown eyes and nuzzles my hand when I go to feed her? Or how about old “Bell”? She has a calf every year, but she has a bad udder and doesn’t give any milk, so the calf always dies, but it really isn’t her fault, she just had an infection that caused her udder not to produce any more milk, and she really is so sweet, so what’s a little more feed anyway?
Or how about that old bull? I really do hate to get rid of him, he is so pretty, but he does tear down fences and go walkabout a couple of times a week.
How long before I would have nothing but a bunch of very decorative live pasture-art? My farm would go bankrupt because I let my emotions and excuses for why those animals were not “carrying their weight” influence me to keep on feeding unproductive stock.
I had little if any problem getting rid of unproductive or disruptive cows on my farm, because I knew that if I kept cows in my herd that cost more than they produced, or caused trouble for me or the rest of the herd by tearing down fences, trying to hurt me, or just in general causing problems, my farm would start to cost more than it brought in and I would go “bankrupt.”
So why didn’t I apply these same principles to my life that I did to my business? Well, first of all I let emotional attachment to “friends” and “family” who were “costing” me more than they produced to stay on my “emotional payroll.”
I had “friends” who only seemed to come around when they needed something, but after all, they really were in a bind, and maybe it wasn’t entirely their fault. I also had friends who seemed to think it was my responsibility to take care of them for the rest of their lives. I had friends and family who seemed to think that I owed them “unconditional love” because I gave birth to them, and no matter what they did, how badly they treated me, or used and abused me, I had to “play nice” with them.
How come if a cow even shook her head threateningly at me she was immediately hamburger, no matter how many calves she had or how fat she nursed them, and I had no problem at all sending her off to the butcher, but I couldn’t stand up to a “friend” or a family member and say, “Don’t treat me like that!”
I knew how to run a business, and I knew what made a business profitable or bankrupt. Why did I not know how to run a life and how to make it profitable and good? I let my life go bankrupt emotionally. Why did I think that things were going to change or get better if I simply allowed more output than there was income to continue? I kept giving to those in my life, but never receiving.
In our lives there are always times we give more than we get in supporting our friends and family, but if this is a continual occurrence, over time we become physically, financially and emotionally “bankrupt.” We must receive as well as give to friends and family.
Now, while I don’t literally run my “life” like I do the farm, figuratively I do. When a person is disruptive to the peace of my life, just like a cow with a dangerous attitude, I terminate them from my “pasture” so that I am not in danger of being hurt. If a person is always taking and never giving, that person is also removed from my “pasture” as unproductive. If a person is always breaking the rules and “jumping the fences” and causing trouble, what do I need that person in my life for? To get me out of bed at 2 a.m. to post their bail? To pay their rent because they can never seem to keep a job?
The people who are now in my life give as much as they receive, show respect for me and for the fences (boundaries) in my life. They don’t stand around waiting for me to bring them a bucket of “feed,” but they get out and hustle up their own, and take responsibility for themselves. I can count on these people to do what they say they will do, and to be trustworthy individuals.
My life is now more “profitable” than it has ever been and that “profit” is laid up as a big “bank account” filled to the brim with PEACE, LOVE and JOY! I am the richest woman in the world.
Dear Banana,
Sometiems lwhen we are “floating in a river” and feel like we are drowning, the first “log” we see we GRAB ON TO to try to pull outselves out of the water, and unfortunately ALLIGATORS sometimes pose as logs to catch PREY. So when you are in distress, they seem somehow to find you and present themselves as your “savior” and then proceed to EAT YOU.
I still don’t quite understand how my professional live flourished while my personal life was in tatters. I think you’ve provided a great analogy, Oxy. I just don’t quite “get” how I became 2 parts of myself- night and day. I don’t know that I will ever figure out the answer, but I’m guessing the realizing that’s what I did is good enough to stop me from doing it again.
I’m bringing the 2 halves closer together. While I don’t expect “something” from everyone, I don’t put up with parasites. Anyone who is a drain gets the flush 🙂 Toxic people should get “mr yuk” style tattoos so the rest of us know they’re poison.
Glinda:
“Anyone who is a drain gets the flush”.. I like it!
libelle and banana, thanks, I guess I am hanging on to people because I feel so isolated and would like people to go do things with, even if their not friends anymore.
I think I acted just like an animal when the S came around, he had “food” and made a “fuss” over me, so I loved him, me, the cow, projected my love on to him!! Mooooooooo!
shabbychic,
It is to bad that we all have “distances” between us and can’t just get together and do stuff as girlfriends do.
That would be SOME get together, I think.
I think many of us here could use to have some friends to do things with!
witsend, really, I think we would all have a blast together!!!
Shabby:
I think we go through a period of great loss and change in our lives that we do hold on to people we shoulnt and for the wrong reasons.
We do want some sort of normalcy, additionally validation of see….it’s not me…..
But unfortunately, these folks provide neither and we become hamsters running on treadmills…..
Eventually, we realize we do not need these persons.
I also think we try to minimize the loss by wanting to replace one friend with another….but we only wait to discard the ‘bad’ friend until we find the replacement….to avoid the gap, the nights at home, the phone not ringing…..
This is the time when we can work on ourselves and become a ‘better’ person to be able to offer ourselves as a better friend to the next person we can qualify to be in our lives.
It’s like women who go from one relationship to another….
It’s not healthy to not give ourselves a break and be alone and reconnect with ourselves.
We all need to clean house occasionally.
Some people just don’t deserve to ride in the front seat of our car…..and they don’t want to be there anyways!
Again….it’s our fantasy!
It’s OKAY to be alone….it sucks….but It’s OKAY!
YOU are the best friend YOU can have!
Dear Erin,
You said it “sucks” to be alone, I DISAGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY—it is ONLY, I think, when we ARE ALONE that we can be introspective and hear our own “voices” and our own feelings. when someone else is around, we DISTRACT ourselves and we DON’T listen to that still small voice inside. I think that is WHY a lot of people (men and women) go from one relationship to the next, as the still small voice is scary to them. I know after my husband died, I got hooked up with the BF-P because I didn’t WANT to listen to myself, I didn’t WANT to experience all the pain and grief of the loss, I wanted something to DISTRACT me from those negative and painful feelings—-to “save” me!
It is BEING alone, without someone to talk to that I started LISTENING TO MYSELF. I think it is amazing what we can learn when we listen to the person INSIDE. That inside voice won’t scream over outside distractions most of the time, so I think we need solitude (which is not lonliness really) or maybe, even lonliness) to learn to listen, talk and converse with that wonderful person inside our heads!
Erin, yes, friends are hard to come by. I’m not looking for a relationshit, just some friends.
Oxy;
Your are right on…..
Sorry…I didn’t express myself clearly.
What sucks is the fact we choose friends that really are not ‘who’ we thought and must ‘clean house’ at some point.
I agree….being alone has huge benefits and is essential to our own self growth.
Shabby…..If we have one good friend in our lives…we have been blessed!
It’s best to be alone rather than surrounded by a bunch of shallow aquantences we can’t depend on through ‘thick and thin’.
Those people are called party bud’s.
🙂
XXOO to you both!